The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad - Ch-1.7 Second Brahmana, Post-7. : Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, March 13, 2021. 10:06. AM.
Chapter - I :
SECOND BRAHMANA: THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE-7.
Post-7.
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Now, many thinkers of the topmost calibre, in the field of philosophy, have held that the cause of creation is not a desire on the part of God, as many would ordinarily think, because it is impossible to imagine that God can have a desire. Ach?rya ?ankara, and such other thinkers, tell us that the cause of the universe is not the desire of God, just as the moon shining in the sky is not the cause of the thief breaking into somebody's house – a very beautiful analogy. If, with the help of the moonlight, some burglar enters somebody's house, the action of burglary cannot be imputed to the moon because it is responsible, in some way, in shedding light to the thief. Likewise is the presence of the Will of God in the process of the manifestation of the universe. The activity of creation, or the substance, the material of creation is, in some way, distinguished from the efficient cause of creation. The efficient cause of creation is the potency of God's Will, which does not desire the world to be created, but becomes necessary for the manifestation of the universe in a particular fashion. The fashion, the pattern, or the shape which the universe takes in a particular cycle of time, is supposed to be the grossened form of the subtle psychological or psychic potency, present in the individuals who lay unliberated at the end of the previous cycle, or the Kalpa, as we call it. The individuals who are not liberated at the end of the world lie potent, latent, seed-like, in the bosom of the cosmos, and they are said to lie for as long a time as the universe lasted earlier. Such is the night of Brahma as the scriptures tell us, as was the day of Brahma, earlier.

This night of the cosmos is compared to the cosmic waters in some mythologies, as we have the waters mentioned, also, in this Upani?had. The cosmic waters, mentioned in creative or cosmological theories, are nothing but the original condition of things, subsequent to the dissolution of the cosmos, and prior to the creation later on, during which period the unliberated individuals lie like seeds about to sprout. A particular set of individuals – they may be millions, hundreds of millions, thousands of millions, etc. – are grouped together in a particular category; and this grouped category of individuals, in their generality of psychic structure, becomes responsible for the material shape which the universe has to take after the fructification of those potencies. Just as the seed does not sprout into a tree at all times – it requires conditions, such as proper atmosphere, good climate, rain and suitable soil, etc. – the individuals who are lying in a seed form do not sprout into activity until maturity takes place. This maturity is supposed to take place somewhat like the waking of the individual from sleep. How long do you sleep in the night? As long as it is necessary for the psychic potencies to wake up into activity. The awakening of the psychic potencies within, into activity, is called waking from sleep, which happens into the daylight of consciousness. Something like that is supposed to take place, cosmically, during the time of creation. The individuals, collectively, feel the fructification of their psychic contents, and they germinate into action. And, the world that is manifest, the universe that is projected, is of a character which is necessary for the fulfilment of the desires left unfulfilled by the individual during the time of the dissolution of the universe earlier.

So, such is the very interesting doctrine propounded by thinkers like Ach?rya ?ankara. We find it in the Brahma-S?tras, especially, mentioned in a very concise form. Perhaps, this doctrine is based upon the Upani?hads, which are more concise and less clear in their exposition. Here we have such a type of doctrine of creation, which makes out that the consciousness of the world is the reverse of the Consciousness of the Absolute, which is very strange for us to hear and even to understand. It is not a part of the Absolute that we are seeing when we are looking out into the world. We are seeing something topsy-turvy, a reversed form, as we see ourselves reversed in water as a reflection. When we stand on the bank of the Ganga and see ourselves reflected, we will find that the head which is topmost will be the lowermost there. The feet which are the lowermost will be the uppermost in the reflection. So, there is a complete reversal of the position of the body when it is reflected. Some such thing is said to have taken place at the time of creation, so that, when we see the head of ours reflected in water, it appears to be our head, but it is not really our head. The head that we see, reflected in water, looks like our head, and it is exactly like our head. We may mistake it for our head, but it is not our head, really. Likewise, we may mistake these things of the world for the Absolute, but they are not, in the same way as we may think the reflected head is ours, but it is not.

To be continued ....

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